Wednesday, March 30, 2011

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) – Consternation is mounting in Argentina and Israel after the leaking of a document purportedly showing that Argentina’s foreign minister secretly offered Iran a deal to quash the investigation into the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in exchange for better trade relations.
The Argentinean newspaper Perfil broke the story with a report based on what it said was an Iranian document showing that the foreign minister, Hector Timerman, made the offer to Iran via Syrian intermediaries. According to the paper, opponents of the regime in Tehran leaked the documents.

Until now, Argentina has been one of the most vociferous critics of Iran in all of Latin America, having experienced two deadly terrorist attacks in the 1990s believed to be the work of Iran: the 1994 bombing, which killed 85, and the Israeli Embassy bombing in 1992, which left 29 dead. At last year’s annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of heads of state, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner called on Iran to surrender the Iranian officials wanted in connection with the 1994 bombing.

What makes the Timerman story all the more bizarre is that Timerman is Jewish, and that he has refused to respond to the allegations; his office says Timerman won’t dignify the report with a comment.
In the meantime, Timerman’s silence threatens to derail his planned trip to Israel next week, and possibly to harm relations between Argentina and Israel.

"We are awaiting an official response to Argentina's Foreign Ministry,” a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, told the La Nacion newspaper. “If confirmed, the report would constitute a grave and infinite manifestation of cynicism and dishonor to the dead.”
According to the Perfil newspaper report, written by veteran journalist Pepe Eliaschev, Timerman made his proposal to drop the investigations of the 1992 and 1994 bombings in meetings on January 23 and 24 with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem and President Bashar Assad in the Syrian city of Aleppo.
Under the proposed agreement, Argentina would not seek to bring to justice Iran’s current defense minister, Ahmed Vahidi, who is the subject of an outstanding arrest warrant by Interpol in connection with the 1994 attack. The perpetrators of the attack were never brought to justice, though an investigation into the attack is still ongoing in Argentina. In exchange for looking the other way, Perfil reported, Argentina’s trade with Iran -- currently estimated at $1.2 billion a year – would rise significantly.

The report comes at a particularly inauspicious time. Aside from Timerman’s upcoming trip to Israel, he was slated to meet with the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Natan Sharansky, on Wednesday in Buenos Aires. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Iran’s most stalwart friend in Latin America, is also in Argentina this week to sign new trade agreements with Argentina’s president.
The report has touched on raw nerves in the Argentinean Jewish community regarding the still-unresolved attack and prompted heated debate over whether or not it is true.
Sergio Widder, the Latin American representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, urged the Argentine government to establish a special investigation unit for the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing, just as it has done for the AMIA attack.
However, AMIA’s current president, Guillermo Borger, is defending Timerman.
“I talked yesterday with the Foreign Minister Timerman, and he assured me that this information is not true -- and more than that, he told me that it is so ridiculous that he can’t reply to this accusation,” Borger told JTA in a telephone interview from Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he had gone to attend the annual conference of the Latin American Jewish Congress.
Claudio Avruj, former executive director of the political umbrella organization of Argentine Jewry, the DAIA, asked why AMIA’s president was rebutting the Perfil article rather than Timerman himself.
Alberto Nissman, the chief prosecutor in the AMIA bombing case, expressed incredulity about the Perfil article.
“I can’t trust in this internal document of Iran, and it is incredible that Perfil published it,” he said. “Even if there is an agreement, nobody will stop me” from bringing the perpetrators to justice. Nissman promised that this year would show more progress in his investigation than the last three years combined, with more evidence of the involvement of Iranian officials in the 1994 attack.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman said that the “terrorist attack on the Israel Embassy was an attack to all the Argentines”, in an act to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the bombing that killed 29 people.
“Nobody in this administration has ever ceased to find ways to contribute with Justice in the probe,” he stated.
“Today I speak as Foreign Minister of a country that suffered two terrorist attacks, and it is true, it hasn’t found justice yet. But I also represent a President who has a personal commitment to this case,” he added.
On March 17th 1992, a bomb exploded on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and injuring 242. On July 18th 1994, AMIA Jewish community organization was also attacked. Eighty five were killed and hundreds injured.

Monday, March 14, 2011

The Kosher McDonald's is located at the food court of the Abasto Shopping Mall. This building was not always a mall. In its beginings this building was the Supply Market of Fruits and Vegetables of Buenos Aires, known as Mercado de Abasto (Mercado = market; Abasto = supply).

Since 1999, this refirbushed building has served as a shopping mall, Abasto Shopping. It is also famous for being in the area where the tango singer Carlos Gardel, known as El Morocho del Abasto ("the dark-haired guy from Abasto"), lived for most of his life. Today, the surrounding area, though part of the Balvanera neighbourhood, is sometimes referred to as Abasto.

The Abasto Shopping centre is served by the adjoining underground station Carlos Gardel of line B metro (subte).

This mall is next to Once neighborhood, one of the traditionally Jewish districts of Buenos Aires. Kosher McDonald's is very popular among the orthodox Jewish community. It turned to be a meeting point at Motzaei Shabbath.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

I was born in Buenos Aires in 1969. My great grandparents came from Syria to Argentina in 1910. I was educated in Argentina, in both Jewish and public schools.

As a student of a Jewish elementary school, I visited the Embassy of Israel at the building located in Arroyo St. intersection Suipacha St. The same building the embassy was located in since its establishment in the country in 1950. The same very building that had been bruttally attacked in 1992. 29 people were killed that day.

Only two years later, in July 1994, the AMIA (Asociación Mutal Israelita Argentina), the organizations that administrates the main aspects of the Jewish life, such as burials, education, culture, employment, was attacked. The number of victim this time was much higher, 85. The youngest was a five years old kid. He was on his way to kindergarden.

Unfortunately I happen to witness both attacks. When the first one took place, I was on a bus in the area. Nobody on that bus thought of a terrorist attack when we saw the smoke mushroom. We nalvely believed it was a gas station that had exploded. I learnt what really happened later on the news report.

In 1994 I worked in a foundation that belonged to a Jewish bank located 300 metres away from the first building of AMIA. I came to work a few minutes after the attack. I was literally in shock when I saw people bleeding coming down the street.

No one was found guilty of neither the attacks till today. The local connection was never established.

After the attack to AMIA building the Argentinean Jewish community leaders agreed to build concrete barricades in front of every Jewish institution and synagogue in the country. To enter in any Jewish building one has to pass security controls. The Israeli Embassy in Argentina is not longer visited by the Jewish students, of course.

The AMIA new building was built in the same place the old building was. In the place the Israeli Embassy was is now a memorial square, where still could be seen the remains of the old building. The building I visited as a little girl.

Although Jews of Portuguese descent arrived in Argentina in the 1580's, the growth of Argentine Jewry into the second largest Jewish community in the western hemisphere is 20th century development. Prior to 1900, the Jewish population was less than 10,000.

Today, the Jewish population is estimated at about 200,000. Most of the Jews in Argentina today are of Ashkenazic origin, primarily from central and eastern Europe.
About 15% of the Jewish population is of Sephardic origin from Syria, Turkey and North Africa.
Find all you need to know about every congregation in the country.